ABSTRACT

This chapter provides an introduction to several of the interacting themes involved in the concept of globalisation, the rise of human rights discourse and the setting up of an International Criminal Court. This is an unusual chapter for a criminology text because criminology historically has been separate from international relations and has only studied actions and processes internal to the nation-state. It is no longer possible to defend this separation in a world of global communication networks and where all activities are interconnected. Globalisation is not, however, a recent event, for it can be traced back at least to the voyages of Columbus and the grand explorations and imperialisms that ensued. The subsequent colonising of the globe usually involved genocidal consequences for the inhabitants whose technological and military power could not withstand the onslaught of European military capability. Both the global slave trade and colonisation involved images of the ‘other’ as inferior, savage and uncivilised. Such images culminated in the Holocaust, the great crime of the 20th century, which occurred in the heart of ‘civilised’ Europe. Responding to state-sponsored atrocities and genocidal massacres is at the centre of the arguments for international criminal courts. Such courts encounter a conflict between desires for accountability for the political elites and the structure of international law, which since the 1640s has placed the notion of state sovereignty as fundamental to its scheme. In effect, the doctrine of state sovereignty gave a right to the rulers of a territory to behave with immunity, safe from interference (at least theoretically) from outside the state. It also meant that criminology as a discipline was located within the gaze of sovereign power and was unable to effectually critique such actions. Criminology normally recognised its basic subject matter – crime – as that which was prohibited and punished by the state, but many atrocities and almost all genocidal actions have been conducted by state-sponsored persons and have never been punished. While much current discourse holds up the ideas of human rights as a reference point to judge state action by, the reality is much more ambiguous. Human rights that are not linked with corresponding duties may become mere rhetoric; correspondingly, trying to make human rights enforceable may lower their appeal and destroy their utopian and critical heritage.